{"id":3165,"date":"2010-01-15T00:30:46","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T08:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:23","slug":"religious-freedom-day-16-jan-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/15\/religious-freedom-day-16-jan-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious Freedom Day, 16 Jan 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated<\/span> <\/strong>with President Obama’s proclamation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Each year\u00a0since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute\u00a0for Religious Freedom (see 2009<\/a>).\u00a0 President Obama does not appear to have issued his proclamation\u00a0for tomorrow yet (now available<\/a><\/em>), though the day has been a topic of discussion in varying forums across the internet.<\/p>\n

Jefferson’s statute continues to be\u00a0a strong expression for the value of religious liberty even today.\u00a0 Though the statute has been discussed in many places and in great depth, there are two important points to take from the statute:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

All men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whether a person is an evangelical Christian or a conservative Muslim, Jefferson believed that religious freedom allowed them to maintain–and profess<\/em>–those beliefs without impact to their civil roles–for example,\u00a0those who serve in the military.<\/p>\n

The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jefferson’s statute, written before<\/em> the US Constitution, reminds us that religious freedom does not come from any document written by the hand of man.\u00a0 President Obama repeated this sentiment:<\/p>\n

[The statute] was a statement of principle, declaring freedom of religion as the natural right of all humanity — not a privilege for any government to give or take away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Religious freedom is a natural right.\u00a0 The Constitution, awesome document though it is, is not<\/span><\/em> the source of religious freedom.\u00a0 The Constitution simply\u00a0attempts to protect<\/em> man’s natural right<\/em> of religious freedom.\u00a0 Thus, there is a moral concept outside of–and arguably greater than–the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Using Jefferson’s\u00a0clearly described concept of religious freedom,\u00a0a Christian who expresses his beliefs\u00a0while\u00a0wearing a military\u00a0uniform does not commit treason, though one military Chaplain has been accused of that very thing<\/a> by the Military Religious Freedom<\/em> Foundation.\u00a0 Likewise, believing in Islam does not disqualify a person from military service, though one commentator suggested that very thing<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0These people\u00a0may disagree with the right of others to their religious freedom, but their disagreement is insufficient to justify the restriction of a person’s human liberty.<\/p>\n

Rather than hiding its religious differences to avoid any remote chance of offense, America should be highlighting<\/em>\u00a0its differences and proudly displaying the fact that citizens of opposing viewpoints live peacefully together nonetheless.\u00a0 Within the military, it is a good<\/em> thing that a Christian and a Muslim can express their exclusive ideologies (and an atheist can disagree with them both), and then all three can go fight side-by-side–risking their lives for each other–despite<\/em> (perhaps even because<\/em> of) their ideological differences.\u00a0 Each is willing to die not only for their comrade, but also to secure the religious freedom of their and their\u00a0comrade’s<\/em> like-minded friends back home.\u00a0 Where else in the world is human liberty so dramatically displayed and so highly valued?<\/p>\n

The religious freedom protected by the US Constitution results in an\u00a0amazing array of public ideological and theological differences.\u00a0 That’s a good <\/em>thing, and America should hold that up to the world as a model.<\/p>\n

A private organization also regularly\u00a0promotes Religious Freedom Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Updated with President Obama’s proclamation. Each year\u00a0since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute\u00a0for Religious Freedom (see 2009).\u00a0 President Obama does not appear to have issued his proclamation\u00a0for tomorrow yet (now available), though the day has been a topic of discussion in varying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[20,4,82,19,44,138,85,2,5218,7,43,10],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-atheism","tag-churchandstate","tag-constitution","tag-government","tag-islam","tag-jefferson","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-obama","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}